Yeah, PhD income is $40k or less a year. So 5x above market rate for high-risk research. On top of that, PhD students are well-aligned for the research and have other non-monetary reasons to pursue the research (their PhD requirements).

as mentioned in the other thread - the grant needs to compete with existing salary, or the OP would need to sacrifice potential income.

I dont think 100k for 6 months is ridiculous, because this is basically the starting salary for a grad engineer at a FAANG tech company. More, if they have experience.

What's actually ridiculous is "PhD income is $40k or less a year" - i think people (such as yourself) is so desensitized to low income as to feel normalized about it!